FOXBORO – The late Woody Guthrie, had he been a football fan, would take one look at these New England Patriots and say, "This train is bound for glory."

This team has the look of a team ready to make the franchise’s fourth straight trip to the final four, and with a personnel grouping that lends a brighter outlook than each of the previous three.

But there is some temporary indigestion as we try to swallow the latest NFL development.

The harbinger of potential doom is dressed in stripes, lending furrowed eyebrows to consumers and insiders alike. What if the refs keep this revamped, increasingly physical Patriots defense from its perceived destiny? What if the bulk of Brandon Browner’s skill set is negated once he gets back from his four-game suspension?

The good news at the moment is that no team is safe, it would appear, as penalties are up around the league. The Saints have drawn 42 infractions, far and away the league’s highest total through two preseason games. The Patriots, meanwhile, are eighth with 26. Last year, they had the fourth-lowest total in the NFL with 75 penalties.

Through 62 preseason games, officials have called an average of 23.7 penalties a contest (11.8 per team). During the 2013 regular season, an average NFL game featured 12.7 total penalties.

All these penalties, at the moment, fall into the Bonnie Raitt "Let’s give ‘em something to talk about" camp. That would be flags, though. Not love.

The points of emphasis have been underlined, and the officials are using August games to reiterate that illegal downfield contact, defensive holding, and hands to the face will not be tolerated.

For now, it’s no easy task to put aside the preseason proliferation of yellow hankies.

"It's tough," prized cornerback Darrelle Revis said Tuesday. He continued. "It's tough I think we’ve just got to work through it. Teams have been working through it during this preseason. I think it's a learning situation for everybody. It's a new rule. The refs are trying to do the best they can. As players, we're trying to do the best we can. By keeping our hands off the receivers down the field. And that's a learning process.

"Maybe in the regular season, things might change. You never know. At this moment, man, everybody's just trying to do the right thing by following the rules."

There could be hope once the games count in the standings, rather than as auditions for not just players but for 33-yard extra points and points of emphasis.

"Hopefully, we don't see as many flags as we've been seeing this preseason," safety Devin McCourty said on Tuesday.

Although, if the last two years are any indication rather than being an outlier, the Patriots may get closer to the ultimate prize the more flags are thrown on their behalf. Last year, eventual Super Bowl-champion Seattle led the NFL with 152 penalties, with the AFC-champion Broncos the runner-up at 132. In 2012, the eventual-champion Ravens committed a league-high 145 penalties, with NFC champ San Francisco third at 126.

Page 2 of 2 - Of course, St. Louis was third in 2013 (123) and second in 2012 (129), and the Rams are 14-17-1 in that time.

At this point, it is not so much the rules as the level of enforcement, and the slaps on the proverbial wrist are piling up.

"Things that you might have gotten away with, you might not get away with," McCourty said. "But I think it's hard to try to change your whole game. We don't want to start giving up long passes and touchdowns just to say, ‘I didn't want illegal contact.’ So hopefully, they just reduce the flags and we get to play a little bit."

While every team has had to see firsthand how well more yellow complements their franchise’s colors, from a coaching angle, the overarching teaching philosophy has not changed.

"We coach the players to play within the rules," Bill Belichick said on Monday. "We’ve always done that. That’s all we’ll ever do."

Eagles head coach Chip Kelly had similar sentiments, albeit a different way of putting them, after Friday night’s three-and-a-half hour affair that included 28 penalties.

"You don’t have to agree with the speed limit, but if the cop’s out there with a speed gun, you better take your foot off the gas or he’s going to pull you over," he said. "It’s the bottom line. Rules are rules, and you’ve got to follow them."

Kelly’s point is a valid one, except that it seems as if the rules are being enforced at a pace on par with the parking attendant who starts writing the ticket the second the meter hits 0:00, even as you start to open your car door.

If a flag does show up near a defensive back after a play, however, McCourty says the player, no matter the flag frequency, doesn’t expect it.

"I think as a DB, you're trained never to look for a flag," he said. "You know, just watching even last night, watching the (Browns-Redskins preseason) game, it seems like, every couple of plays, there's another flag.

"It'll be tough for people trying to watch the game and have work in the morning and stuff like that."

It will take more than frequent flags to derail these Patriots. But these flags are hard to ignore.

Tim Whelan Jr. can be reached at 508-626-4402 or twhelan@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @thattimwhelan.